Art

A Celebrated Arts Destination

Asheville has been heralded as a prime arts destination by the New York Times, Southern Living, Travel + Leisure and American Style Magazine, just to name a few media accolades. Get the Asheville Travel Guide (online or print version) to plan your next visit.

At the 1st Annual LEAF Downtown this past weekend, over 15,000 people gathered in Pack Square Park to celebrate communities, creativity, diversity, and families – a grand finale to two weeks of programming around Asheville focused on supporting arts education. LEAF Downtown included a Funky Cocktail Crawl, which launched on July 17th; Bootsy Funk Dynasty Day, held at New Mountain AVL on July 31st; the LEAF Art Dash 5K, which looped through downtown Asheville on August 1st; the unveiling of the Unfolding LEAF stage (U-LEAF) on August 1st; and the weekend long event on August 1st and 2nd. In addition to high public attendance, the event hosted 75+ VIPs, approximately 100 volunteers, 100+ staff and 500+ individual youth and adult artists performed on the Downtown Stage, Café’ Stage, Community Arts/U-LEAF stage and/or the three Busker Bazaars.

Friday July 17th Rhetorical Factory will be featuring the art of Cindy Kunst of CLicKs Photography. Kunst has been creating photographic art in Asheville for years, both journalistic and abstract. So much of how she uses her camera is inspired by her ability to connect with her subjects; reading the CLicKs website and blog will give you an idea of all the varied events and niches of Asheville culture she is a part of. Just a few years ago Cindy hired Rhetorical Factory to make a screen print for her photography uniform. Bethany Adams, owner and artist of the local shop, took a photo of Cindy’s first camera ever, and made a design. The Clicks uniform shirts are printed at Rhetorical Factory with that camera design and the Clicks logo on second hand clothes that Cindy supplies. The camera print is a part of the Rhetorical Factory original collection as well.

When Adams invited CLicKs to be the featured artist for the store in July the creative wheels started to turn. Kunst was inspired to get her art “off the wall” and came to Rhetorical Factory with the idea for another collaboration: fabric printed with her art, sewn into clothing by Bethany Adams. The two have been developing the idea ever since, and it will culminate with the opening at Rhetorical Factory at 444 Haywood Road in West Asheville Saturday night with refreshments starting at 4pm and music by local guitarist Bryan Steele from six to nine pm. Garments at the showing will be samples, with any of the clothing styles available in any of the featured prints, made-to-order. The walls will bear our collaborative photography surrounding the collection as well as unique glass tile pieces Kunst has designed to complement the collection will also be for sale. You are invited to come get inspired by local art!

In the middle of April planning began for a series of events to be held at the Asheville Outdoor Center to benefit WNC Advocacy League. The owners and staff of Asheville Outdoor Center have a deep passion and appreciation for the local arts movement, and were hoping to find a way to celebrate and promote that. They just happened to reach out at the right moment to the founder of WNC Advocacy League who is equally passionate and motivated. Together they are bringing the area the First Annual Asheville Sunset Arts Festival to be held on June 20th, 2015, from 4pm to 10pm at the Asheville Outdoor Center, right on the river at 521 Amboy Rd. Asheville.

The Artists of Asheville’s River Arts District open their doors for a full weekend in the Spring Studio Stroll and Art Sale, welcoming the public to experience and collect amazing art in the studios and galleries in which the inspiration flows. Come be inspired, shop, meet the artists and watch live demonstrations. Saturday and Sunday, May 9th and 10th 10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.

A new business is coming to 120 Coxe Ave on Asheville's quickly growing South Slope. Neighbor to Vortex Doughnuts, Wicked Weed, and Twin Leaf Brewery, the new BlackBerg Creative Studio offers customers something other then beer and food. BlackBerg caters to the creative types that are always on the look for new and different crafts. The brainchild of Stephanie Mergelsberg, this new spot is a hybrid of craft store, classroom space, and studio space open to anyone with a project to use.

Join RiverLink and Brenda Mills to find out how as an artist you can become a contractor for the city. We are pleased to offer these special two hour interactive FREE information sessions at RiverLink's Warehouse Studios, 170 Lyman Street from 10 to 12. The next program will be held on September 25, with a final date of October 29.

Happening June 7th, 2014 the second All Go West Fest is happening in West Asheville. There will be three stages set up with bands playing starting at 11 am until 1 am. Three stages will be used, so pick and choose your bands wisely. Find bands at Isis, The Mothlight, and an outdoor stage (location of the outdoor stage is to be announced.) All Go West is an entirely free event, so be sure to show your local love and buy a beer (or two, or three...) from the venues that offer a fine variety of wares. Unlike last year, Taste of the West - the VIP portion of All Go West is not happening, but we hope to see it back next year. In the meantime, check out the list of amazing artists that are performing June 7th.

Studio A Invites You To Grand Opening Imagine being surrounded only by things that are hand-made, created with love and inspired by spirit. Studio A is one such place where the vibrant artist, Andrea Kulish creates handmade lamps, pysanky eggs, mixed media art as well as silkscreened t-shirts. She invites you to Studio A Grand Opening: two days of celebration, creativity and live demos. Andrea creates the shades for her handmade lamps using an array of unique handmade paper, photographs as well as fabrics. She welcomes interior designers, businesses as well as individuals with a specific idea for interior decor to consult with her for custom-made lamps. For the lamp bases, Andrea collaborates with Asheville’s own metal artists Tina Councell of Iron Maiden Studios and Mark Schieferstein of Skrapmonkey turning each piece truly artisan-made. As for her inspiration, she says, “After making hundreds of colorful handmade lanterns for the annual lantern parade around Jamaica Pond in Massachusetts for two years in a row, I wanted to make something that would enable me to play with color and light and also be more permanent than lanterns.” She names her lamps too. For example, she created a pair of lamps inspired by the mother humpback whale and her calf, Salt and Zelle, which adds a …